The Mountain Man and The Lost Tribe

By John J. Law

I was in the cabin of the legendary mountain man Jeb Carlyle. He had just fed me a sumptuous dish of rattlesnake head, of all things. After some initial trepidation, I managed to finish the surprisingly good meal. The meal was only one of the many things that could catch your eye in his little home. 
As we continued our conversation, I would later realize that just about everything in that little cabin had a story waiting to be told. After an initially awkward and potentially dangerous introduction, Carlyle was now starting to warm up to me, and was slowly revealing each of those stories, one at a time.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.C. Hulsey Books
• Release date: Dec 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223159254

Book preview

One: The Hawken Rifle

I was in the cabin of the legendary mountain man Jeb Carlyle. He had just fed me a sumptuous dish of rattlesnake head, of all things. After some initial trepidation, I managed to finish the surprisingly good meal. The meal was only one of the many things that could catch your eye in his little home. As we continued our conversation, I would later realize that just about everything in that little cabin had a story waiting to be told. After an initially awkward and potentially dangerous introduction, Carlyle was now starting to warm up to me, and was slowly revealing each of those stories, one at a time.

His eyes rested upon the rifle that hung over his fireplace. At one glance, I could easily tell that it was not the usual rifles that most men of the plains used now. I could also tell that it was not the usual muzzleloaders that most mountain men used, or at least were envisioned to use. The one thing that caught my attention with the gun was its length. The rifle seemed unusually long, a lot longer than most rifles I had seen before, and definitely a lot longer than said muzzleloaders.

Carlyle noticed that I was eyeing his prized weapon just as he was.

You noticed the Hawken on the wall? You’re a good man who knows quality guns when he sees them. he said.

I was amazed at how instantly he recognized that the gun had caught my eye. He was clearly observant and could notice the slightest details that most men would simply pass. It only told me that this man’s senses and instincts had not been dulled despite the passage of time.

It’s one of those long rifles. Not a lot of those in circulation these days, but it sure looks like it just rolled off the presses. You take care of your guns very well.

Carlyle smiled with pride. As you can see, I take good care of my belongings. You know your guns, Sir. That’s a good thing too. And as you can see, this Hawken’s one of them good ones. It’s served me well through the years. A very loyal and reliable weapon, as you said. The long barrel gives it much better accuracy than most of the muzzleloaders we used back in the day. It sure minimized the spray and pray thing we mountain men were known for, back then.

I was all too familiar with the ‘spray and pray’ method that Carlyle was talking about. This was the method that described how mountain men armed and loaded their muzzleloaders back in the day. The method consisted of placing cotton, then gunpowder, and then a small metal ball into their rifles before firing. The method became infamously known as ‘spray and pray’ because of the muzzleloader’s tendency to fire wildly and inaccurately. The pray part was well, quite obvious and sometimes deadly for the aforementioned mountain man. The term ‘muzzleloader’